💬One big tip for solving bad small talk

Being more likable might just mean learning to riff.

“So… how about that weather, huh? That rain? Boy, we need that.” You can feel your soul withering and your mind begging you to get out of this conversation. And you were the one talking! Small talk can be the worst. As Erik Barnes explains, the secret to small talk that doesn’t die mid-sentence is something called collaborative riffing.

Think of it as conversational jazz. Instead of asking questions that invite one-word answers, you build a shared moment together. You react, add a little playfulness, and roll with whatever comes up.

Collaborative riffing works because it’s fun, vulnerable, and spontaneous. It creates a quick bond that feels real, not rehearsed. Even if your joke bombs, you’ve already won by being present, human, and a little brave, and Erik teaches you how to do it. You’ll never ask ‘So, what do you do?’ the same way again.

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And what did we learn?

Yesterday we shared a story about Ireland funding the arts and turning a profit. So, of course, we had to ask you how you feel about using tax dollars to fund the arts, and the answer was pretty definitive. Well over 60% of you couldn’t think of any better way to spend a tax dollar, and another 26% would fund the arts as long as the project stayed in the black. GOOD to know.

• I can't think of a better way to spend my tax dollars (64.7%)

• If it can sustain itself, I'm for it (26.5%)

• The arts are doing fine without my money (4.4%)

• It's not the government’s place to fund the arts (4.4%)

Reader CalGroups put it plainly. “I want to be part of a community that recognizes the importance of the arts and rewards the arts."

🌅  Harvard says these 6 tiny habits will change your mornings forever

As a society, we’re just not doing mornings right these days.

The only time my wife doesn’t give me a hard time for having a phone to my face when she wakes up is when she wakes up first, and I catch her doing it. We’ve all been there, bleary-eyed, thumb-scrolling, mainlining cortisol before we’ve even made it to the bathroom.

Surely, there’s a better way to start the day.

According to Harvard happiness expert Dr. Arthur Brooks, there is. In fact, he’s got a six-step morning ritual that he says makes every day measurably better. It’s not about perfection or productivity. As Mark Wales reports, it’s about stacking small choices, physical, mental, even metaphysical, that shift your mindset and set you up for a more grounded, creative, and focused day.

No, you don’t have to wake up at 4:30 or chant in Sanskrit. But you might want to hold off on that first cup of coffee.

💿 Still skipping: One man’s love affair with the Discman that outlasted the iPod

From a time when you needed a separate device for every single task.

Twenty-four years ago yesterday, the iPod changed the music world forever, but Ryan Reed wasn’t ready to let go of his Discman, his headphones, or the perfectly scuffed CDs that held his memories.

In this funny and unexpectedly moving time capsule, Reed remembers the way music tethered him to moments: late-August walks with The New Pornographers, basketball bus rides soundtracked by Beastie Boys, and burned CD mixes that still hit harder than any algorithm.

But the real surprise? It’s not just nostalgia. There’s a reason CDs, and Discmen, might be making a quiet comeback.

Sometimes the best way to get people to notice all the things you do is to stop. That was the idea behind the 1975 Women’s Day Off in Iceland.

On October 24th, over 90% of the country’s women stopped work. Not just paid jobs, but also housework. By afternoon, an estimated 25,000 people, huge in a nation of ~220,000, filled the city center for songs and speeches in what many remember as a quiet revolution.

The effect was massive and almost immediate. The following year, parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal rights for women and men; five years later, Icelanders elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically elected female president, an outcome Vigdís herself linked to that “long Friday.”

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💬 From the group text…

This kid is going places. Dropping his first single before working out how to rollover!

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